Friday, October 06, 2006

More Laws to be Ignored by Emperor George

Aren't you getting a little sick of this? I know you Bush supporters are only too glad to let your representatives pass laws only to have them ignored. Here's 3 dozen more, but I guess that means President Bush groupies can sleep safer tonight knowing Daddy is in charge. If they want to be treated like this I wish they'd just join the Congressional pages and bend over.

AP - President Bush, again defying Congress, says he has the power to edit the Homeland Security Department's reports about whether it obeys privacy rules while handling background checks, ID cards and watchlists. In the law Bush signed Wednesday, Congress stated no one but the privacy officer could alter, delay or prohibit the mandatory annual report on Homeland Security department activities that affect privacy, including complaints. But Bush, in a signing statement attached to the agency's 2007 spending bill, said he will interpret that section "in a manner consistent with the President's constitutional authority to supervise the unitary executive branch."

. . The American Bar Association and members of Congress have said Bush uses signing statements excessively as a way to expand his power. The Senate held hearings on the issue in June. At the time, 110 statements challenged about 750 statutes passed by Congress, according to numbers combined from the White House and the Senate committee. They include documents revising or disregarding parts of legislation to ban torture of detainees and to renew the Patriot Act. Privacy advocate Marc Rotenberg said Bush is trying to subvert lawmakers' ability to accurately monitor activities of the executive branch of government.

BOSTON GLOBE - Bush's signing statement challenged at least three-dozen laws specified in the bill. Among those he targeted is a provision that empowers the FEMA director to tell Congress about the nation's emergency management needs without White House permission. This law, Bush said, "purports . . . to limit supervision of an executive branch official in the provision of advice to the Congress." Despite the law, he said, the FEMA director would be required to get clearance from the White House before telling lawmakers anything.

9 Comments:

Bill, you are looking at this backwards. Congress is trying to pass laws that limit the President's Constitutional authority. It is the President's sworn DUTY to defend and uphold the Constitution. Look at the key phrase of his signing statement:

"The executive branch shall construe section 503(c)(2) in a manner consistent with the Appointments Clause of the Constitution. Also, section 503(c)(4) purports to regulate the provision of advice within the executive branch and to limit supervision of an executive branch official in the provision of advice to the Congress. The executive branch shall construe section 503(c)(4) in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President to require the opinions of heads of departments and to supervise the unitary executive branch."

In one instance, Congress attempted to define the qualifications from which a pool of inferior FEMA appointments must possess to even be considered by the President. They have no Constitutional authority to do this....NONE. It would merely be struck down by the Supreme Court anyway.

In short, you say Bush is defying Congress, whereas those viewing this with objectivity would say that Congress is defying the Constitution.

How is President Bush different from a monarch, and do you believe our system is designed for a monarch? He's using this war powers act to usurp power from the other branches, ignoring 750 laws and counting. He claims if it's a matter of national securityhe can imprison anyone forever. He has the power to do anything he wants - all he has to say is that he determined our security was at stake. Are you okay with that? Maybe I should ask what you have on these people that protects you so well? The rest of us don't want to live under this kind of absolute power.It's not a system of laws, because the war on terror - this endless war - has given the President the right to override them. Would you give Hillary the right to decide if you lived or died? Maybe your friend Bill Clinton could make the case to her.

A guy in Pennsylvania has a long festering grudge, goes nuts and kills innocent schoolgirls. The appointed leader of a superpower has a long term grudge against the guy who tried to kill his father, goes nuts, and starts a war and kills hundreds of thousands of innocent people. Who is more evil?

And the nut in Pennsylvania didn’t try to destroy his country’s rule of law and its Constitutional rights.

There’s a saying in the business world. If you have to fail, fail big. Does that apply to murder? According to most Republicans, it does.

Here's something from the Post: "Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), chairman of the Senate's Katrina investigation, said its findings showed that the president needs a principal adviser for emergency management, as he has on military matters in the Joint Chiefs of Staff.Congress sets job requirements for officials from the U.S. solicitor general to the director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, she said. They are comparable to the five years of management experience and demonstrated emergency-management skills it mandated for the head of FEMA, she said. The director also should be allowed to make recommendations directly to Congress, she said, authority that the White House rejected."

I find it interesting that Butch picks on the one incident where Congress is presumably overreaching while he ignores the hundreds of times Bush has done it with signing statements.

The only reason Bush is getting away with this is that Congress is controlled by the Republicans. Wait until that shifts in November. Congress will no longer be his lap dog--they're going to start investigations and hearings against Bush. It's going to get beautifully ugly.